


as deep down as I've ever been

by glitteratiglue



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Frenemies, Ideology, M/M, Pining, Slow Build, they pine for twenty-four years: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-02
Packaged: 2019-06-01 07:10:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15137867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteratiglue/pseuds/glitteratiglue
Summary: Erik is a grenade with the pin removed, a fired gun in the kickback of recoil, the shrapnel in the aftermath of a bomb. He is an earthquake that Charles has spent most of his life trying to recover from.And Charles would gladly do it all over again. He’s not sure what that says about him.[It takes Charles and Erik twenty-four years and quite a few false starts to figure it out.]





	as deep down as I've ever been

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [redacted] for their patience and helpful insights as I hammered this into shape.

_1962_

“You wear far too many clothes,” Erik practically growls, before shoving Charles up against the hotel room door and kissing him.

Charles laughs into his mouth and reaches down to cup Erik, already hard and pressing against the seam of his trousers. Erik groans, and in retaliation, Charles feels the touch of Erik’s powers sliding his belt buckle open.

They’ve been on the road three weeks. It isn’t the first time anything’s happened, but it’s the first time they’ve gone beyond fumbled touches after midnight and kisses snatched in dark hallways and alleyways.

Erik is now determinedly kissing down Charles’s neck, leaving red, wet marks on sensitive skin in his wake.

They struck out with today’s mutant, a young married woman whose husband had no idea about her seismic mutation, but Charles can’t bring himself to care. You can’t win them all. Their numbers are growing; Charles is confident the extraordinarily talented individuals they’ve found so far will make quite the team. He’s in a good mood tonight, and clearly, he isn’t the only one.

Charles is quickly divested of tweed coat, shirt, trousers and briefs by a combination of Erik’s powers and his ruthlessly efficient hands. Once Erik has stripped away his own clothing, they’re in the awkward business of stumbling around, trying to get rid of their socks. Charles watches Erik nearly overbalance in his eagerness to peel the second sock from his foot and grins to himself. He gets it over with as fast as he can manage, tossing his argyle socks onto the floor next to Erik’s sleek black ones.

Once they’re naked, Charles can’t help but watch Erik as he climbs onto his bed and stretches out on the expanse of white sheets. Erik’s body is positively sinful: all firm, lean lines and economical amounts of corded muscle. It is a body that has lived a life on the move, a body unaccustomed to being still.

“You're staring, Charles,” Erik says, his mouth barely restraining itself from a smirk.

“Shouldn’t I?” Charles replies, teasing.

Erik grins at him unashamedly. Evidently, he also likes what he sees, and Charles feels himself flushing under Erik’s gaze as his feet carry him to the bed.

“Come here,” Erik says, his hair falling over one eye, and manhandles Charles thoroughly until he’s positioned where he wants him on the bed. Charles secretly enjoys the manhandling, but he’s unsure of its purpose until he picks up on a hint of Erik’s thoughts and is charmed beyond measure: Erik is seducing him, the old-fashioned way.

“Let me touch you,” Charles protests, blunt fingernails scraping over the sharp line of Erik’s hipbones in his haste to reach lower and take his cock in hand.

“Time enough for that, my friend,” Erik says, infuriatingly calm, and bats Charles’s hand away.

Charles grins and lounges back against the pillows. If Erik’s dead set on this, he might as well go with it.

“I think we passed friendship approximately a week ago,” he can’t resist saying.

“You’re talking too much,” Erik chides. He stretches out his hand, fingers sliding over Charles’s chest before coming to rest low on his belly, and  _God,_ Charles doesn’t think he’s ever been this hard.

“How about if I talk in here?” Charles says, letting his fingers hover over his temple. He hardly needs to when he’s focused like this, truth be told, but it makes the images clearer. Allows him to see intent rather than merely suggestion.

 _Yes_ , is the surprising reply from Erik’s mind as he bends his head forward to kiss Charles.

They’ve never done it quite like this before, Erik letting Charles speak in his mind, not since the water in Florida. He’s caught glimpses of Erik’s thoughts when they are particularly loud, but Erik’s mind still isn’t ready to fully let go, to let him in all the way. He is aware that his trust in Erik is one-sided for the moment, but that’s to be expected without the advantage Charles has of reading people.

The loneliness of his gift is something he is used to bearing.

Charles settles for opening his own mind for Erik, letting him feel everything he can. Erik takes his time, enjoying it as much as Charles from all the sensations Charles is sending into his mind. His fingertips move down Charles’s body, trailing feather-light across all those sensitive places, and he listens for the way Charles’s breath hitches whenever he finds a new spot. He lays bites on Charles’s chest, mouths across Charles’s stomach until Charles is flushed and shaking, his cock aching from lack of attention.

Two can play that game, Charles decides, aggressively shoving an image into Erik’s mind of exactly what he wants him to do.

“You want me to fuck you?” Erik asks, lifting his head from Charles’s hip.

Charles tries to decipher the expression on Erik's face. It’s not apprehension, or not knowing what to do — it’s something else. Erik’s sexual past is a mystery, as nebulous as the rest of his thoughts usually are to Charles, but he gets the feeling that, to Erik, sex is normally a perfunctory release, nothing more. It’s the intimacy that’s new to him. Well, he can work with that.

“Haven’t I made that clear already?” Charles says with a small smile. “I’d like that very much.”

It seems to be all the reassurance Erik needs. He lurches forward to kiss Charles again, completely artless and eager.

Charles breaks the kiss with no small amount of difficulty—Erik can’t stop touching him, chasing his mouth—and goes to fumble in his suitcase to grab what he needs. Back on the bed, he gets his fingers slicked and reaches down, meeting Erik’s eyes while he starts to work himself open. He’s never felt so exposed; his heartbeat is so loud he’d think Erik could hear if it that wasn’t a physical impossibility. The look on Erik’s face is sheer heat as he watches him, like he’s trying to commit every action to memory.

“Come here,” Charles says, an echo of Erik’s earlier command. Erik does, moving to settle himself between Charles’s thighs. And then Charles is drawing up his knees, hands beneath them, pressing them back into his chest.

 _Oh_ , Erik thinks, reverent in the face of this vulnerability, the thought loud and clear enough for Charles to hear. This soft, faint touch from Erik’s mind reaches Charles in a way he’s hardly felt before. It’s new and fledgling, but on some level, Erik is showing Charles he trusts him. Or at least, that he wants to.

Erik reaches down to line himself up and Charles gasps as Erik presses inside, the stretch of it stealing his breath. His cock’s softening; Erik isn’t exactly small and Charles isn’t as relaxed as he thought he was.

“Fuck, so tight,” Erik pants into his collarbone, and Charles laughs, strained. “Charles, you feel—"

“Oh,” Erik says, out loud this time, catching Charles’s meaning. He lifts his head. “I’m hurting you.” Now his mind is quiet, hesitant and he is still inside Charles. “Want me to stop?”

“Absolutely not,” Charles says, and breathes slowly for several seconds that might as well be hours.

All along, Erik looks at him, tender as a bruise. Watching and waiting with those severe blue eyes that could draw anything in the world out of him.

Then Charles presses fingers to his temple—“You can,” Erik says—and it’s different now, Erik’s mind slowly opening for him the way Charles’s body is opening for Erik, the tightness starting to give as he relaxes around him. From Erik, Charles feels the sheer visceral thrill of Erik’s cock sliding into him, the shocking heat that’s gripping him. He feels his own cock stiffening in response and sighs in pleasure, trying and failing to unpick which sensations are his and which are Erik’s. It hardly matters anymore.

Charles lets his hand drop and this time, the connection with Erik’s mind remains, Erik's thoughts mingling freely with his.

“Alright?” Erik murmurs, soft, and Charles nods. Erik's fingers splay out over Charles’s jaw, and he shifts up the bed to capture his mouth in a kiss, sliding deeper at the same time. “Like this?” Another slow thrust, and Charles moans into his mouth. “This?”

Charles can’t speak and his thoughts are a mess, a jumble of  _Erik Erik_ _Erik_ and _God, yes_. He sends a burst of that into Erik’s mind—slowly, so as not to overwhelm him—and the reaction is instantaneous.

A pile of loose change on the nightstand flies at the opposite wall with a crack and the metal bed frame creaks, the roses carved into the footboard untwisting themselves into new shapes. Charles looks at Erik questioningly. He suspects Erik is only doing it for a flourish, rather than a loss of control. At the parlor-trick level, Erik controls his magnetic powers too well to unleash them so carelessly.

“Show-off,” Charles grinds out, the end of the word turning into a whine as Erik gets deeper still and the mattress squeaks beneath them.

“Sorry,” Erik says. “You caught me off guard.” He smiles a half-smile. “And maybe I was showing off a bit.”

“Your power is extraordinary, truly,” Charles tells him breathlessly, overcome. “There’s so much you could accomplish.”

“As much as I love your inspirational speeches, Charles, this isn’t the time,” Erik reminds him, mercilessly stepping up the rhythm until Charles can’t do much except gasp and dig his fingers into the backs of his thighs.

Erik is trembling above him, and Charles can almost taste the orgasm in his thoughts, a taut thread close to snapping already. Charles thrills at being a willing voyeur of these soft, private places in Erik’s mind. It’s like nothing he’s ever felt before, a freedom he never knew existed to know someone like this, to feel every part of them.

A fierce thought crosses from Erik’s mind to his:  _I want to fuck you until you can’t walk_.

Years later, those words stay with Charles, and will make him laugh with the irony of it. Right now, he moans and arches up into Erik with a full-body shiver.

*

Charles loved Erik even then, knew it that same night, the rightness of it taking shape in his thoughts.

How could he not? Beautiful, broken Erik whose every thought screamed how afraid he was of love. Charles wanted to show him he didn’t have to be.

To Erik, love was a weakness, an unnecessary distraction that derailed you from your path. He knew all too well how those you loved could be used to hurt you, and so he loved no-one. It was a cold, stark logic, but one Charles had thought he understood. He hadn’t.

Ever the optimist, Charles had hoped he could change Erik’s mind, show him there was something more to live for than revenge.

When he thinks back, he considers it the worst mistake he’s ever made.

*

In the lost years that follow, Charles measures time by the welcome bite of the needle into flesh, ever-increasing doses of the serum provided by a dutiful Hank.

He takes a hollow kind of comfort in the knowledge that Erik is safely locked away where he belongs.

He doesn’t think of the wheelchair gathering dust in the closet. He doesn’t think of his former students: scattered to the winds or sweating in the jungles of Vietnam, an already-forgotten legacy. He doesn’t think of Erik, entombed in concrete and sand with no metal to sense or touch.

Charles shuts it all out as he has shut out the whole world. Until he can’t anymore.

Logan shows up on his doorstep and it is like being unfrozen, the shock of warmth applied to a painfully frostbitten limb. He dangles the promise of a future where Charles and Erik are united, and despite the horrors in that future, Charles only puts up the barest resistance before accepting Logan’s words.

He has never wanted to believe in anything more.

*

_1973_

“How did you live, Erik, all those years in a cell?” Charles asks, halfway through their chess game. All the loose items on the plane are thankfully back in their respective places.

Erik doesn’t answer right away. His right hand is resting on the board, and its fingers curl into a fist before he catches himself, making an obvious effort to relax his body.

“I meditated,” Erik says, looking up at last. “Read. Did yoga. Emma was taking classes. She used to make us all do it in the evenings, before, when the Brotherhood was just getting started. She said it would help us focus our powers better.” His eyes tighten with a hint of pain he shutters away quickly.

Charles cracks a smile at that, the image of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants all simultaneously in downward dog pose. He wonders if Azazel’s tail got in the way. God rest his soul.

Erik is right. They’ve lost too many, and it’s on Charles as much as it’s on any of them.

“We shouldn’t have lost them,” Charles says. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” Erik says, the words clipped. “But what’s done is done.” He waves a hand, clearly wanting to draw a line under this before it starts another argument.

“The name of this group of yours, Erik,” Charles says, attempting to lighten the mood. “I’ve been meaning to ask, why—”

“Just don’t,” Erik growls.

Charles raises an eyebrow. Message received. He peers at the board, trying to decide upon his next move.

When he chances a glance upward, Erik is glaring at him, but as Charles looks at him, the glare turns to a smile.

And Charles thinks:  _oh, fuck. I (still) love you._

He never stopped, really.

*

Hours later, the lights are out in the cabin, with only the gleam of the cockpit up ahead to illuminate the space. Their chess game lies abandoned on the table. Logan is fast asleep in his chair.

Erik has stretched out on the couch, and Charles is drunkenly fighting sleep in the chair opposite.

He closes his eyes. He gives in, and he remembers.

*

Here’s what Charles remembers: the sun rising over his bed in the mansion, years before. He was barely awake, trying to ignore the light. Erik was up already, had drawn the curtains, his mind thrumming with a tense watchfulness. Charles answered Erik’s attempts to rouse him with non-committal grunts, but Erik had been determined to wake him. His fingers had pressed divots into Charles’s spine, his mouth following each touch until Charles reluctantly opened his eyes, grumbling.

It was the day they fought Shaw, the day of the beach, and on some level, they both knew this fragile thing between them might not survive. Maybe that was why Erik had woken him up early and they’d fucked again, though they were both sore and wrung out from the night before and might be going into battle that day. It wasn’t spectacular for either of them, but that hadn’t mattered. The need to be close to Charles was pouring out of Erik’s thoughts, the conflict between his hatred for Shaw and his love for Charles all forming a deadly maelstrom inside him. Charles had given himself to Erik, every piece, and hoped it would be enough to hold the storm inside him at bay.

With hindsight, he knows nothing would have ever been enough to stop Erik.

Days later, when Charles woke in the hospital to the news he’d never walk again, he still had the remnants of the bruises Erik had left on his hips that morning. The bruises on his face, too.

He wasn’t sure which reminder hurt worse.

*

Charles opens his eyes, feeling like he’s taken a bullet all over again, and looks at Erik. He’s breathing softly, no sign he’s awake. Logan is similarly out for the count, or at least pretending to be.

His throat is going tight, heart hammering in his chest and he knows it isn’t just the alcohol. Erik’s presence is a splinter under his skin, salt in a stubborn wound that refuses to heal.

He shoves to his feet and goes to prod Erik awake.

Erik’s eyes snap open. The chess pieces rattle, but nothing else moves. Logan sleeps on.

*

“Really, Charles?” Erik is saying, clearly amused. He’s crowded up against the bathroom sink, practically hip-to-hip with Charles.

For a moment, they just stand there, bleary-eyed and bathed in fluorescent light, and Charles thinks this could have been a horrific mistake.

He’s ready to leave, tail between his legs and spend the rest of the flight in a spiral of self-hate and humiliation when Erik gets into his space and says: “Come on, then.”

“Shut up,” Charles says, slurring a bit from all the booze he’s drunk. “Just shut up, Erik.”

Erik holds up his hands in surrender. “I wasn’t planning on talking.” His eyes flick over Charles, a grin on his face. His hands drop and Charles’s jeans start to unzip themselves.

It’s quick and rough: they kiss hard enough to bruise and wrap their hands around each other’s cocks, which isn’t the easiest in such a tight space.

Without his telepathy, this still feels strange for Charles, only his own sensations to concentrate on rather than the echo of another person to enhance it. But once he reaches for Erik, he recalls this part easily: Erik, panting brokenly into his neck with every stroke, the smooth heat of Erik’s cock in his hand.

In turn, Erik jerks him off angrily with a force that’s nothing short of brutal while Charles presses his grunts into Erik’s collarbone.

The pleasure is muted when Charles comes—another side-effect of the serum—but he allows himself to be swept away in Erik’s gasp, the furrowing of his brow as he spills hot over Charles’s fingers.

They clumsily clean themselves up, and Charles is ready to spring apart when Erik turns his head and slots their mouths together. The kiss is brief, but so shockingly tender it leaves Charles stunned.

“I missed this,” Erik says, his eyes searching Charles’s face. His voice sounds wet. “I missed you. I wish that things were different, that I hadn’t—"

Charles can’t stand hearing the words, can’t make his brain comprehend that after everything, Erik is holding onto something Charles thought he had let go of years ago. He shoves at Erik, and Erik doesn’t retaliate. Just stands there looking crestfallen, as if he has any right to be.

“You don’t get to say that to me,” Charles tells him, voice shaking, and there’s no reply. He tears his gaze from Erik and shoulders past him to leave the bathroom.

Logan is up now, apparently absorbed in reading the paper. He looks horribly uncomfortable for the rest of the flight, and Charles can’t exactly blame him for that.

*

Of course, it doesn’t fix anything.

But Erik’s soft, desperate confession taunts Charles. He replays it endlessly in his mind, looking for further meaning that isn’t there. The worst thing it could be is true. Maybe it is.

Which makes it hurt even more the next day, when Erik tries to kill Raven and disappears again.

The bastard.

*

Charles is trapped under a mess of toppled steel, having narrowly escaped death for the second time when he thinks he really needs to get the fuck over Erik.

“I’ve said that before, Charles,” Raven says when she comes back a few months later for an unexpected visit. She wears her natural form now, and he makes no comment on it.

He has no idea what she’s doing now and can tell she doesn’t want him to ask. How things change.

They’re walking in the grounds, eased by Hank’s further upgrades to Charles’s wheelchair. He’s practically gliding along.

“What was it you said, all those years ago?” he asks.

“Don’t sleep with Erik?” Raven says. She grins, but it’s a little sad.

“Ha ha,” Charles returns weakly.

She’s never liked him to read her mind, but he nudges a memory at her now: a rare night, years ago, where he’d been drunk enough to confide in her about his feelings for Erik. It had upset her—at the time, she’d also been nursing a crush on Erik—but Charles had been selfish back then. Too blinkered by his own arrogance to see past it and consider what she wanted, too. He’s paid the price for that many times over.

“Oh,” Raven says, slowing her tread. “ _That_  time.” She looks pointedly at Charles. “I said: you sleep with the hot bad boy; you don’t fall for him. Because he always hurts you in the end.” She grimaces. “Don’t I know it.”

She isn’t wrong there.

*

Charles puts Erik out of his mind and concentrates on mentoring tomorrow’s mutants. The school reopens with a handful of students, and it's a small victory for him, a way of reclaiming the hope he buried for so many years.

He gets moving in the right circles in Washington. Raven’s heroism has sparked up a new debate about mutants in society and Charles is determined to capitalise on it. He lobbies congressmen, writes letter after letter and gets a surprising number of thoughtful replies back. There’s talk of forming a committee for the protection of mutant rights. They’re on the way.

He’s sufficiently distracted by this for approximately two years, until he isn’t. The whole time, Charles has been expecting Erik to retaliate in full force with the Brotherhood, but instead, there’s nothing. Not a peep from him.

Is he dead? Charles tries not to wonder, but it keeps him awake at night more than it should. 

*

_1975_

Using Cerebro to ferret out Erik’s whereabouts isn’t the most ethical thing Charles has ever done. But he still does it.

It doesn’t take long to find him: in Poland, of all places. Charles is surprised — for such a wanted man, Erik hasn't exactly gone very far. He'd imagined finding Erik in the Far East, or holed up on some remote Pacific island.

The familiar tenor of Erik’s mind shimmers in front of him, and there he is. Charles is somewhat ashamed of the relief that floods through him upon seeing Erik alive and well.

Erik is alone, a book open on his lap and the walls of a dingy apartment surrounding him. Dust motes float in the air, shouts drift in from the street outside and Charles hears and sees it all as if he is there. Erik’s hair is longer; he has a beard and Charles tries not to be irritated by the fact it rather suits him (Charles always looks like a homeless person when he doesn’t shave).

Erik looks up and snaps the book shut.  _The Once and Future King_ , Charles notes with amusement. He’s been teaching it to the students this week.

“Charles.”

“Hello, Erik.”

He can tell right away Erik is different. Unusually content. His steel trap mind is softer, its barbed edges blurred by a warmth Charles hasn’t felt from him since —

Erik is in love.

Charles sees flashes of the woman: Magda. She is pretty, with long dark hair and eyes rich with a kindness and understanding Erik so desperately needs. Her name in Erik’s mind tastes like spring rain and crisp apples, like something new and precious. The memories get more private—Erik’s mouth moving across the smooth expanse of her belly, his hands spanning her waist, dawn slanting in the windows over a poorly-sprung mattress that creaks beneath them—and Charles forces himself to pull back when he senses Erik flinch.

“I’m sorry,” Erik says awkwardly. “I didn’t mean to tell you like that. Clearly, I wasn’t shielding enough. I expect I’m out of practice.”

“I’m happy to see you so happy, my friend,” Charles replies, and there is no lie to it.

He expected the knowledge to hurt more than it does. It pushes at the old sore that has always been Erik’s love for him, but nothing more. A half-remembered ache long tucked away and forgotten.

Erik sips tea from a metal mug, and it doesn’t escape Charles’s notice that he picks it up rather than letting it drift over to him.

“You’re not using your powers, Erik? Even for something like that?”

“No,” Erik says quietly. He puts down the cup. “I’m learning there’s a pleasure in doing things the old-fashioned way.”

Charles remembers what Erik had once told him about metal: the way it sang to him, its atoms shimmering as though they were begging him to manipulate it. The way the magnetism fed off his rage, his joy, drawing its power up from a bottomless well somewhere deep inside him.

He wonders how he could bear to give that up. Perhaps Erik has something better to live for these days.

“How goes the school?” Erik asks, genuine interest flickering across his thoughts. Charles can sense regret, too — for what could have been, in another life.

“Much better these days,” Charles says. “We’re growing the student population considerably. Although, there are more dangerous mutations out there than I thought.  My study’s gone up in flames more than once.” A wry smile is playing over his lips, and he let Erik sense it until he’s smiling, too.

Charles doesn’t say the place isn’t the same without Raven, but he doesn’t need to. Erik knows it anyway.

“I’m sure you’re doing a wonderful job,” Erik says. He clears his throat. “This thing between us, Charles: you know what it meant to me. I held onto it for ten years in a prison cell. But we’ll never change, either of us. You know that.”

 _I understand,_ Charles sends silently, because he needs a moment to get control of himself. He passes a hand over his eyes.

“I want to try to do this your way,” Erik says. “To live among the humans who would despise us if they knew, and hope for better times.”

Charles knows. Erik had to live, had to cast off the lead weight of Charles that kept him tethered to dreams they had both long put aside.

It’s not as if Charles has been a monk all these years either, but running the school takes up most of his time and any liaisons have been fleeting at best. Sex is one thing, but he’s never seriously entertained the idea of giving his heart to someone else. He’s not sure he still has a heart to give. If he’s being honest, it’s always belonged to Erik, tied up with their long history and the enmity between them.

Charles asks the obvious question: “What will you do if they find you?”

Erik’s expression turns grim.  _What do you think._

“I will do everything in my power to help you both if you ever need it,” Charles promises, though it feels like something inside him is breaking.

A brief flare of irritation comes through from Erik:  _Charles, always the saviour. As if I can’t protect my loved ones by myself._

“Erik,” Charles says warningly. He considers shutting the connection down but is loath to do so. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know,” Erik finally says, and he isn’t angry, not really.

Charles has learned to live in his own way, through his students, to see in them what they cannot see themselves. What he could never see in Raven, all those years ago. He hopes he’s learned from his mistakes, but he’s never sure.

Erik has finally come around to the idea of a world where humans and mutants can peacefully (for the most part) coexist. If only he’d come to Charles when he decided this. Charles could have loved him the way he’d once longed to.

He shields this from Erik, of course, leaving only mild curiosity and wistfulness in its wake so Erik won’t get too suspicious.

There’s nothing left to say.

“Goodbye, old friend,” Charles says, and he feels Erik smile.

“Don’t look for me.”

He lets go.

(He doesn’t, really.)

As the years pass, Charles allows himself the indulgence of occasionally drifting into Erik’s mind, the touch so faint that Erik won’t notice. He sees a summer wedding, Erik surrounded by friends from his village who know him as Henryk, sweet wildflowers all around, twisted into the bride’s hair and worked into Erik’s buttonhole. He feels his pure joy at Nina’s birth some months later, his fierce conviction that he will give her a better life than the one he was forced to live. Erik’s capacity to love is without end, but since he lost his parents, he’s never had anyone he trusts completely to lavish it upon. Now he does.

Charles watches Erik cradle his newborn daughter and weeps until he has to withdraw for fear of alerting Erik to his presence.

*

Increasingly, Charles finds himself dwelling on how they fared in the other timeline. Logan hadn’t been forthcoming about what had brought their older selves back together, perhaps because he knew they had to discover it for themselves. The world had been on the brink of destruction, but Charles suspects that wasn't the only reason Erik finally came over to their side.

 _There’s going to be a time when we’re all together_ , Charles had said to Hank in the stadium. He wishes he really believed it.

Endless possibilities unspool in his mind, an infinite number of possible futures he can never examine fully. Raven’s choice would have reset that other timeline, and Charles wonders what Erik’s place was in that new world. Maybe he didn’t exist at all, and the world was a better place for it.

Too often, Charles’s thoughts turn to Raven and his chest feels like it’s constricting.  In the other, darker timeline, she had died at the hands of Trask: experimented on, tortured and discarded when she was no longer of use. There are still those out there who will consider her mutation valuable, and it makes her vulnerable. He could protect her better at the mansion, he knows it, but it has been a long time since Raven has needed anything from him. He has to respect that, as much as it goes against his instincts as her brother.

Sometimes, he remembers the old man wearing his face he’d seen in Logan’s memories — the strength and self-belief in his words, his hope a candle that never dimmed even in a world where their kind was facing extinction.

Charles can’t see how he’ll ever be that man, but he can try.

*

_2023_

Here, at the end of all things, Erik is kissing him in the side room of a mouldering old temple, a hand sliding under Charles’s stupid, uncomfortable black body armour to feel him up.

“Allow an old man some foolishness in his last moments,” Erik murmurs into his ear.

“Pity we don’t have time for much more,” Charles says, with no small amount of regret.

He makes out with Erik for the next five minutes, which turns out to be all they have.

The sound of Logan’s claws slashing sends them rushing into the next room to find they have little time indeed to fix things.

Once Erik is mortally wounded, Charles knows all is lost. For all their past disagreements, he’d never want to live in a world where Erik didn’t exist.

They hold hands and listen to the growing noise as the Sentinels get closer to breaking through. Erik never looks away from Charles, though his wound is deep and his pain is clear to Charles without having to read his mind.

Erik’s life ebbs away by the second, and with it, their hope of changing the past, but he never gives up. He holds tight to Charles’s hand and reminds him he can be brave until the world disappears around them.

*

_1983_

In the end, when tragedy strikes, Erik never thinks of reaching out to Charles.

Afterwards, Charles turns it over and over in his mind, wishing things had gone differently. That Erik would have trusted him. Maybe he wouldn’t have had time to save Erik’s family, but he could have tried.

Erik wasn’t in his right mind—indicative by the fact he’d joined up with an insane, blue megalomaniac—his thoughts intent on the revenge that would never bring him peace. And unintentionally setting mutant rights back decades, which Charles finds it harder to forgive him for.

These things trouble Charles, but none so much as this: Erik would have done anything but return to him and the family he’d renounced so long ago.

Perhaps he would have come to him in the end, if things had gone differently, if Apocalypse hadn’t found him first.

Charles will never know.

*

A day after the rebuilding is complete, and three days after Alex’s funeral, they end up in bed together.

It isn’t something either of them expects, at least on the surface. The old hurt has dulled and Charles is starting to think this antagonistic friendship of theirs is the new normal.

The design of his new bedroom is the same as the old, but it doesn’t quite feel like home yet, not without the well-worn coffee stains on the table and the piles of scientific tomes Charles will never get around to reading. At least there is a chessboard. One night, Charles invites Erik to his room for a game as his study is still in disarray. They play chess and trade good-natured barbs, trying to put off the discussion of anything serious for as long as possible.

Erik puts on a good front, but his grief is ever-present, a gathering storm churning beneath his skin. Charles is wise enough not to push him to talk.

After the game ends, they discuss Charles’s plans for the school and the X-Men, tactfully avoiding the subject of whatever Erik is planning to do next. Avoiding the guilt Charles continues to push down inside himself about Alex. Erik evidently approves of Raven’s new position as chief tactician; a chance Charles should have given her years ago. At least it’s happening now, another step on the road to that future Charles still sometimes longs for, where they are all together and working towards a common goal.

Even without the helmet, Erik guards his mind carefully, but Charles catches something hard and bitter in Erik’s thoughts as he listens to him talk.

“It’s a lovely picture, Charles,” Erik says, stretching back in his chair. “Your utopian university, mutants and humans mingling together as brothers and sisters. I’d like to think it’d work, but history tells us otherwise.”

“Enough, Erik,” Charles finds himself saying. “Can we leave ideology out of it tonight, please?” He is acutely aware their time is running out. Erik is unlikely to stay much longer now that he’s fulfilled his promise to get the mansion back in order.

Erik pauses, his eyes flickering over Charles in the firelight. He bites his bottom lip absently, and Charles is ashamed by the heat in his body from watching Erik do that.

“Agreed,” Erik says softly. “There are better ways to spend our time.”

Charles meets Erik’s gaze and shivers as Erik comes around the table and bends down to meet his mouth.

They make it to the bed in a blur of desperate kisses, Erik’s powers moving the wheelchair across the room in his impatience to spread Charles out on the sheets. Erik is almost too eager, his hands bracketing Charles’s face, his mouth wet on his mouth, his thoughts full of years of repressed desire and want for Charles. It’s easy for Charles to forget about all the reasons why they shouldn’t do this right now.

“Erik,” Charles says, his mind groping its way to common sense though all the warm, lean sinew of Erik is on top of him, “you don’t want this now. Not like this.”

“Don’t tell me what I want,” Erik says gruffly, kissing him again, and well, Charles was never a saint. He reaches for the hem of Erik’s shirt so he can tug it over his head, and Erik obliges by quickly removing the rest of his clothes.

In turn, Erik carefully strips Charles and there’s a long, awkward pause when their eyes both turn to where Charles’s cock is still soft against his thigh.

“I never asked what you can do,” Erik says nervously, pulling back for a moment. “Can you still —”

“I need to think sex through a bit more, these days,” Charles says, as gently as he can. “But it’s very much possible.” He smiles.

There’s a flare of guilt in Erik’s mind, and Charles shakes his head.

 _Don’t._  Erik’s head jolts at the thought that’s just hit him; Charles hadn’t intended to send it so strongly, but at least Erik gets the message. Dwelling on the past is the opposite of helpful right now.

“I can feel it a tiny bit,” Charles says, in answer to Erik’s lingering uncertainty. “But mostly in the form of nerve pain. My telepathy helps me in the sense that I can feel sensation through the other person. I can get an erection with physical stimulation, just not mental. Sometimes I can orgasm, but I don’t feel it in the same place. Oh, and there is this rather brilliant drug Hank accidentally discovered that, er—keeps things up, so to speak. He thinks it might have considerable application in the wider world. I don’t always need it, but it’s a good option to have on hand.” He takes Erik’s hands. “The point is, I still enjoy sex. I’ve learned to enjoy it in a new way.”

“Maybe I’ll have to try this wonder drug myself.” Erik’s grin is wolfish.

“Now  _that_ you’ve never had a problem with,” Charles says dryly, eyes dropping to Erik’s cock, heavy and hard between them. “But maybe we can keep it to the one session. I need to function tomorrow, and teach. I’m old now.” He rubs a hand over his smooth head as if to emphasise this.

He’s reminded of the foolish young men they once were, who’d fuck all night, then stumble into a cab with matching hangovers and dark glasses and sleep their way to the next prospective mutant recruit. Erik laughs as that memory touches his mind.

“I take blood pressure pills now,” Erik admits sheepishly.  “We’re none of us immune to time’s ravages. Unless you’re Raven, that is.” He frowns. Charles knows the two of them still haven’t repaired things, but that’s their business.

Charles takes advantage of Erik’s unusually thoughtful state to press a hand to the nape of his neck and draw him in for another kiss.

He reaches for Erik’s cock, smiling at the sharp breath Erik lets out from between his teeth, tuning in to the delight in Erik’s mind. But something isn’t right; Erik is going soft in his hand and twisting away, out of his grip.

“No, not now,” Erik says, and it comes out sounding like a sob.

And then Charles feels it — a bright, fond memory, as bright as the one he once drew out of Erik’s thoughts in sight of a satellite dish.

He inhabits the scene as if he is Erik: here are Erik’s feet, his legs, chasing his daughter around the back of the farmhouse, her tiny feet just ahead of him. Erik catches Nina and tickles her until she squeals and Magda comes out to scold them for making so much noise. Erik just laughs and tugs Magda down to the ground with them. The tickling starts up again, until the three of them are covered in dirt and howling with laughter. The happiness pours from Erik’s thoughts, overlaid with the grief and horror of their deaths. Charles blinks away a tear.

Erik is shaking. “I didn’t mean you to see,” he grits out. He reaches for his clothes, pulling them on in a rush from the instinctive need to put a barrier between them. Charles shuffles down to retrieve his own clothes from the foot of the bed, giving Erik time to collect his thoughts while he gets dressed.

The wrongness of it all radiates from Erik, the guilt and shock hitting Charles square in the chest, as fresh and raw as if it were the same hour they died.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” Charles tells him uselessly, rubbing at his eyes. Erik’s pain is threatening to overwhelm him, too. “I am so sorry.”

Erik sits on the bed at last. He’s facing away from Charles, folded in on himself.

“I thought I wanted this,” Erik says, “but I can’t, Charles. I can’t even have you.”

Still not looking at him, he puts a hand on Charles’s thigh, forgetting for a moment that he won’t feel it. Erik frowns apologetically and strokes the same hand over Charles’s forearm instead.

“I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologise for,” Charles tells him sincerely. “You’re grieving, and by its very nature, grief tends to be a terribly messy process one cannot predict in the slightest.” He pauses. “I told you I could help you, and I meant it.”

He doesn’t expect Erik to turn around and kiss him, but he does. Erik kisses him with red-rimmed eyes and his hands tight on Charles’s shoulders, pouring everything into the kiss. All feeling, all grief, and all of it entwined with his love for Charles.

Charles runs his hands through Erik’s hair and meets his mouth, breath by breath. Shares his mind with Erik, and Erik shares in turn. Charles opens himself for Erik, takes his pain as he has so many times before.

_I know. I know, Erik._

Eventually, Erik pulls away. They fall asleep together, Erik’s hand in his.

In the morning, they go down to the Danger Room and Charles tries again to convince him to stay, knowing even as he speaks the words that they’re futile. Erik’s mind is made up.

He leaves, taking a piece of Charles with him. As if he hasn’t been taking pieces of him since 1962.

*

This is the truth: Charles is riddled with holes from the way Erik has loved him.

Erik is words left unsaid, sentences cut off before their completion, all possibilities of response dropping into the ether. He is a grenade with the pin removed, a fired gun in the kickback of recoil, the shrapnel in the aftermath of a bomb. He is an earthquake that Charles has spent most of his life trying to recover from.

And Charles would gladly do it all over again. He’s not sure what that says about him.

Erik Lehnsherr simply happened to him, and he can never un-happen.

*

The next morning, Hank’s thoughts are so full of  _I told you so_ that Charles can hardly stand it. He broods over the breakfast table, is short with his students and feels guilty about it for days.

“Are you going to go, too?” he asks Raven later, head reeling from the four glasses of scotch he’s sunk in an effort to forget about Erik.

“No, Charles,” she says, shaking her head, a patient smile on her lips. “And Erik just needs time. You know that. He knows he’ll always have a family here.”

“I know,” Charles sighs. He tries to run a hand through his hair, forgetting again he doesn’t have any. He rubs a hand over his bald head, miserable. “I just hoped it would be different this time.”

Truthfully, he’d hoped Erik would remain here, letting the comforts of the mansion and the tranquillity of the surrounding woodland heal him. That the steady pulse of time would knit Erik back together, even if he wouldn’t let Charles do it. But licking his wounds around others has never been Erik’s way; he was over thirty when he made his first true friend in Charles. He is used to being alone.

*

_1984_

Facing Erik across a committee was never going to be easy.

He’s clean-shaven and wearing a well-cut grey suit that clings to his lean form, looking indecently good for a man the wrong side of fifty.

Charles has been invited as a representative for the mutant cause: their respectable face, of sorts. His opinions are not required, only his presence. He sits there and tries to look as non-threatening as possible.

“In penance for my crimes against humanity,” Erik is saying, “I pledge my support to the continued efforts to improve human-mutant relations. I have stepped down as leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants, and do not associate myself with their recent activities.”

He almost sounds reasonable. That is, if you didn’t know him the way Charles does.

“Mr Lehnsherr, that’s all well and good,” some rotund, steely-eyed senator says. His gaze sweeps around the room. “But how do we know we can trust you?”

“You don’t,” Erik says simply. “But I will say this: as long as humanity treats mutants with all the dignity they deserve, you have nothing to fear from me.”

Squabbling erupts either side of Erik, the debate spreading to all corners of the hall. Erik remains grimly silent while they slowly come to the conclusion that they’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Charles is so busy sifting through the minds of those present that he almost misses Erik’s gaze meeting his. Erik’s eyes are wide and hopeful, and Charles has to reach for his mental shields to block out the waves of sorrow and longing emanating from him.

He doesn’t blame Erik for leaving, for needing time to process his grief; of course not. But the months apart have thrown into sharp relief what Charles has known all along: they are too different.

 _Too little, too late_ , he thinks firmly. Erik is always playing the long game, and Charles refuses to be naïve enough to think that any of this is for his benefit.

His thoughts are less firm in his study that night. He thinks of the solid heat of Erik’s body pressed to his, Erik’s callused hands touching him all over, the stubborn line of Erik’s mouth tracing a path over his bare skin.

Charles draws in a deep, shuddering breath and curls his fingers into his palm, digging blunt nails into flesh until he gets control of himself.

*

Erik, to his credit, does try to stick to his promises. At least at first.

Charles doesn’t hear anything about him for a while—which is usually a good sign—but then comes the incident in Albuquerque.

An orphanage, a safe haven for mutant children is discovered to be a front for the kind of cruel experimentation Sebastian Shaw marred Erik’s childhood with. New Mexico is far out of Charles’s telepathic reach, but he can almost imagine the children’s terror, their helpless, scattered thoughts as they begged for someone to save them. He should have done something. He has long known of the place, if not its true purpose, and should not have left the young mutants unprotected. If only the mansion had the capacity to take all those children who are in need.

Erik’s wrath is both terrible and swift. Days later, he turns up in the city in his cape and helmet with a whole host of new allies, including the frighteningly-named Sabretooth.

Nearly all of those responsible are killed as the retribution plays out. Erik only leaves the headmaster alive, pinned to the ground with a sheet of metal for the authorities to retrieve later.

Charles watches the footage that night on television with an awful sense of inevitability. The red of Erik’s cape gleams neon-bright against the haze of the desert behind him as metal rips itself from the building and the cars of employees trying to escape fold in on themselves, crushing their inhabitants. Charles finds he cannot look away. There has always been a kind of poetry to Erik’s righteous violence: a precision, something monstrously beautiful that draws the eye to him. It has its own kind of magnetism.

Incredibly, the tide of sympathy turns towards Erik when he gives a speech afterwards about the depths of humanity’s cruelty towards mutants and the ways they have hidden and cowered since 1973. He walks free, pending many enquiries and investigations.

Here is the gulf between them again: the one who acts, and the one who does not.

Not for the first time, Charles is choked by his own guilt. Raven was right after all, when she told him the world was only better for mutants in Westchester and he didn’t want to see what else lay beyond his borders.

*

Charles has to admit he’s touched when a host of small, frightened mutants with travelling cases clutched in their hands turn up on his doorstep a few days later.

Erik has not deigned to escort them, instead sending a menacing-looking mutant called Toad in his stead. Charles would rather not ask what his mutation is, much less pick it out of his thoughts.

Toad has a note with him, written in Erik’s neat, cramped hand:

_Dearest Charles,_

_I thought these children would be better off with you. Don’t let me down._

_\- E_

Charles tries not to smile at the thinly veiled threat within the words. At least Erik is trying to meet him halfway, for once.

Adding thirty-four new pupils to the student body is a stretch, but they make it work. Raven proves herself to be invaluable in the early days, somehow understanding what even the quietest and most reticent children need. Under the care of her, Hank and the other teachers, the children begin to blossom and take joy in their mutations for the first time in their lives.

Unfortunately, they are not all so easy to tame. Russell Collins, or Firefist, proves particularly difficult to manage. The foul language alone will take time to purge from him. Charles tries to take it in his stride when the boy’s emotional control explodes into a fireball and his recently-reconstructed study bites the dust for the fourth time since the school began. He will not allow Russell to give into fear, for he knows only too well what becomes of small, angry boys poisoned by loss, and the kind of men they grow into.

Charles had once seen that same anger and fear in Alex Summers. It was not too late for Alex, and so he makes Russell a special project. Day after day, he takes the boy to the bunker and trains him until he stops raging and fighting and realizes that for once in his life, there is someone unwilling to give up on him.

This is the gift Charles gives all his students, and it’s often the one they need the most.

Privately, he’s always thought if he could just save one more Erik from being unleashed upon the world, all his efforts at the school would be worth it.

But perhaps the world needs Erik’s kind, too. Charles is beginning to see that more and more.

*

_1985_

Raven decides to organise a benefit.

“Charles, even you aren’t that rich,” she says breezily, spreading her notes and plans out over his desk. “With all these new students, we need money, and dumb rich people love throwing money at a hot new cause. This time, let’s make it the school.” She looks at him slyly. “And maybe the X-Men, too.”

Charles has to admit she’s right.

He’s always detested these dog and pony shows, but Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters needs funding in order to realize his dreams of further expansion. Grudgingly, he goes along with it. And if they use some of the money for Hank’s weapons development programme, well, nobody is to know. It’s for the good of humanity as well as mutants, he rationalizes. These days, he’s hoping for the best and preparing for the worst — one thing Erik’s taught him, if nothing else.

At the event, he wheels himself from group to group with Hank and Raven at his side. He keeps a bland and welcoming smile on his face and tells everyone the gifted children will be so grateful for their support. He’s bored out of his mind within ten minutes, but these things must be done.

Soon enough, Charles finds himself a distraction. He strikes up a flirtation with a lovely pro-mutant lobbyist who is admittedly at least fifteen years too young for him, a fact Raven will no doubt remind him of the first chance she gets. It’s all going rather swimmingly and he’s thinking he might get lucky tonight when he picks up on a familiar mind in the vicinity.

He turns and there is Erik, skulking in the corner wearing black tie.

“Please excuse me for a moment,” he says brightly and makes his way over to Erik, trying to shake off the stab of guilt at how disappointed the poor woman is.

“You weren’t invited,” Charles says, peevish that Erik’s got in the way of what had the potential to be a delightful evening.

“As if that would keep me out.” Erik swipes two champagne glasses from a passing waiter and passes one to Charles, perching on an expensive-looking gilt table next to him.

People are eyeing Erik already—his presence is causing something of a stir—and they should probably get out of here. From across the room, Hank and Raven’s mouths drop open simultaneously, and Charles decides he doesn’t care to read their thoughts.

“How are your new students settling in?” Erik asks.

“They’re managing well,” Charles replies. “Your foul-mouthed little friend Russell is an interesting one. His power is quite remarkable, if somewhat hard to contain. But he’s learning.”

Erik cracks a smile. “Little shit. He had the nerve to criticise my outfit even while I was saving his life.”

“That’s because it’s ridiculous, Erik,” Charles says, and Erik lifts his eyebrows, choosing not to address the insult otherwise.

“I know you don’t agree with my methods,” Erik says, cradling the glass in his hands, eyes fixed on Charles intently. “But I saved many of our kind. Tell me those children’s lives aren’t a million times better with you than with that religious zealot who was trying to torture their powers out of them.” Erik’s face reddens with anger, and Charles longs to reach for his mind, to calm him, but he holds himself back.

“Thank you for sending them to me,” Charles says. “But you didn’t have to kill anyone, Erik. That never makes things better for anyone; especially our kind.”

He is not sure he believes the words as they come out of his mouth. Hadn’t Charles seen the depths of human cruelty first-hand, decades ago, when he looked into the mind of a young man bent on revenge and decided to jump into the water and save him?

“I beg to disagree,” Erik says flatly. “The staff were that man’s devotees, hand-picked for their prejudices. Had they lived, those people would have continued to spread hatred of mutants and work against us, even from jail. I don’t need to be a telepath to know that.” He drains his champagne in one gulp.

Charles remains stony-faced.

“You know I had to do it,” Erik insists. He huffs out a sigh. “Can’t we call a temporary truce, Charles? I’m growing tired of this conversation.”

Having had years of practice, Charles manages to push away the uncertainty in his thoughts. He lets his face relax, turns back to Erik and clinks their champagne glasses together.

“Very well. Truce.”

But Erik isn’t looking at him anymore. His eyes are on Charles’s would-be conquest—now turned away and speaking to someone else—his gaze distrustful and his lips set in a hard line.

How they get from there to making out in a coat closet ten minutes later is somewhat hazy in Charles’s mind, but he’s at least clear on the fact that this is a very, very bad idea. It’s just so hard to remember that when Erik is risen up on his knees in front of him, hands fisted in Charles’s expensive silk shirt and kissing him like his life depends on it.

“Never had you down for a dirty old man,” Erik teases, laughing against his mouth. “She was lovely, Charles, truly.”

“Shut up,” Charles says crossly, and yanks at Erik’s hair, making him groan in a way that’s the opposite of helpful when he’s trying to be angry with him.

Charles isn’t as surprised by this turn of events as he could be; jealousy had always been a powerful aphrodisiac where Erik was concerned. There had been all those nights in bars in between looking for mutants when men and woman had flirted with Charles — and Charles couldn’t help attracting them, he really couldn’t; he was just naturally predisposed to say what people wanted to hear, to draw them in. Erik would stand at his side, eyes smouldering in a way that let Charles know he was going to pay for it later, by being fucked senseless by Erik while he did all sorts of wonderfully sexy and creative things with the metal objects in the room.

Erik is slipping a hand beneath his shirt when Charles pulls away from his mouth and finds the strength to say: “Erik, we can’t. It’ll confuse things.”

Erik straightens up, recoiling like he’s been punched. Charles feels an ache in his chest that isn’t his own. The door handle warps, the light fitting in the cupboard blows and with a muttered “Fine,” Erik stalks off.

Charles spends the rest of the evening getting incredibly drunk and thinking he’s far too old for this shit.

*

Three weeks later, Charles is sitting down to a nice cup of tea in his study when Erik sweeps into the mansion, sans helmet, no doubt ready to piss all over his afternoon. It’s like he has a sixth sense for when Charles might possibly be enjoying himself.

Courteous to the last, Charles offers Erik tea, which he declines. He also declines the seat Charles offers him in favour of pacing back and forth in front of the desk.

Erik has a wild-eyed look about him, and Charles doesn’t have to read his mind to know his thoughts are stormy and chaotic. Charles sets his hands on the desk and waits for Erik to gather himself.

“I wanted to apologise for my behaviour the other week,” Erik begins stiffly. “I shouldn’t have expected we could just go back to…”

“We’re both adults,” Charles says. “Think nothing of it, Erik. I’ve already forgotten,” he lies smoothly. He studies Erik carefully. “That’s really why you’re here?”

“I’m here, old friend,” Erik says, “to take you up on your former offer. To help you with the children.”

Charles suppresses the urge to start laughing.

“Really, Erik? I’m supposed to believe you’ve had a complete ideological turnaround?” The words burst from Charles, and he’s surprised at the anger in them. “This coming from the man who once called the rest of humanity Neanderthals?” He shakes his head. “No, I am not going to put my children at risk like that. Not after what you just did. I was willing to give you a chance, Erik.  I really thought you’d changed, and you just —”

“That was different and you know it,” Erik cuts in.

The words give Charles pause, but he shrugs it off. He eyes his cup of tea mournfully; it’s already growing cold.

“You will always be my friend, Erik,” he says, keeping his voice even. “But I can’t trust you.”

Erik’s face falls. “You always used to. Even when it was the most idiotic thing you could have done.”

Charles sighs in frustration. “Tell me, then. What’s different this time?”

Erik looks at him for a long moment. “Call it pragmatism,” he says softly. “In recent years, I’ve seen there are more shades of grey beyond the humans who have made me suffer. Mutants are not the only ones to have suffered at the hands of evil. After I freed the children, they talked about human orphanages where similar abuse was happening. We could help them all, Charles. Not just our kind.”

Charles picks up on the turmoil in Erik’s thoughts, the internal war he’s having with himself over a lifetime of prejudice. That can’t be undone overnight. But underlying it is some kind of truth, and it’s that which stops him from throwing Erik out right now.

“Do go on.”

“Magda was human,” Erik offers, and Charles almost winces at the stab of pain that flares in his mind from just saying her name. “Does that mean nothing?”

“I never said that,” Charles says, softening his voice. “It means a great deal.”

“Let me explain this way, then. I decided that carrying on as we were—you hiding away, me trying to make them fear us in the hope that would afford us greater privileges in society—would never end well, for both our races.” Erik’s face darkens. “We’ll all end up dead.”

“I was protecting my children,” Charles says. “But I’ve since realized I was also isolating them. I should also be preparing them to use their gifts for the good of all humanity. Allowing them to confront society’s opinion of them and try and change it for the better. Is that what you want? Otherwise I can’t have you teaching here. My students are not weapons of war.”

“But they are,” Erik says. “Don’t play coy here. We were training children to go after Shaw in the sixties. And your little telekinetic girl—Jean, is it?—certainly proved herself more than capable in Egypt. Yes, they need to study, but they also need to learn to defend themselves if the war does come. I can help them do that.”

“That’s not what we do here,” Charles says coldly.

Even as he says the words, it strikes him that he’s trying to convince Erik out of this. The X-Men are becoming more of a priority for him than teaching, these days, as much as he hates to admit it. There are always new threats emerging and protecting their kind, their way of life is important. But Charles will not resort to murder under any circumstances. This is the difference between him and Erik, and Charles clings to it even as he acknowledges that the chasm between them has narrowed over the years.

“Why not reveal yourself, Charles?” Erik says. “Step into the light and show the world who Professor X really is. What he can do. Since you spoke to the world, there’s been plenty of speculation about the world’s greatest psychic. Why not write the narrative yourself?”

“Erik,” Charles warns. “There have to be stages. What you can do is frightening enough for people. You’ve seen the way people treat those like Kurt Wagner and Raven. When they learn I can read their thoughts, what do you think they’ll do?”

His throat is thick with the other words he cannot say. What he’s really afraid of: Erik deciding his experiment with pragmatism is a mistake; Erik leaving; Erik taking another piece of him and leaving nothing but regret in his wake.

“You’re as big a hypocrite as I ever was,” Erik says bitterly. “Fine, Charles. Keep your tricks to yourself.”

Charles wonders if he can convince Erik to stay the night—in a separate room, of course—and they can continue this conversation in the morning, but the thought proves moot.

He looks up, and Erik is already gone.

*

Some nights later, Charles wakes clutching the sheets, his heart pounding and his eyes wet.

It’s a familiar dream: he was dreaming of a beach in Cuba, a conference room in Paris, of Erik’s powers pulling his broken body and wheelchair down the corridor towards En Sabah Nur and rest of his horsemen.

And despite all that, Charles has always nurtured compassion for Erik. Hope. He has always taken great pains to see the good in him: his love for his human mother, his human wife, his daughter. His love for Charles. Charles is the only one left to love him, and he could, he could, so easily, but —

It’s been years, he tells himself. They should both move on with their lives.

So why can’t he?

*

_1986_

The more Charles tries to forget Erik, the more he pops up. It’s almost perverse.

There are TV news segments and newspaper articles describing the extraordinary turnaround of Erik Lehnsherr, formerly one of the world’s most dangerous criminals. Erik’s violent liberation of the mutant orphanage had divided opinion at the time, but there were at least as many who agreed with his approach as didn’t.

Not everyone is so convinced of Erik’s turn to the straight and narrow, Charles included. There are initial protests from the public over Erik’s attempts to rejoin society, but slowly, he wins the naysayers over with his own peculiar brand of charm.

He uses his magnetic powers to affect complex repairs of several crumbling, ancient buildings around the world. He volunteers at soup kitchens and food banks. He visits hospitals in his Magneto outfit and makes the sick children laugh by doing tricks with metal. He works with wayward teenagers—both human and mutant—showing them they have the power to set themselves on a different path, how it’s never too late to come back to those who love you. The program is praised for its efforts at integration, and a number of the young mutants end up coming Charles’s way. As if that wasn’t enough, Erik delivers a speech about his mother on Holocaust Memorial Day that’s so moving it’s written about for weeks afterwards.

In the background, the Brotherhood are still lurking, but their plots are all rather half-hearted these days. They barely seem to be trying.

Charles grits his teeth at each new saintly act reported about Erik, a headache exploding at his temples. It’s almost as if Erik is doing it on purpose.

“Yeah, of course he is,” Hank says impatiently, while they’re organising the roster for next semester’s classes. “But come on; don’t fall for this. We all know Erik. If you ask me, it’s all part of some evil and dastardly plan.”

“A plan,” Charles says. “Of course.”

Why didn’t he realize it before? The truth hits Charles all at once: in his own lunatic way, Erik is sending him love letters.

He starts laughing and can’t stop until his ribs are aching and Hank is looking at him like he’s lost his marbles.

*

“Maybe it’s real this time,” Raven says when they’re having dinner that night, just the two of them. “He’s changed. The Erik I knew wanted nothing to do with humans.”

It means a lot coming from her; she knew Erik at a time when he was at his darkest.

“He’s too volatile,” Charles says. He rubs at his temple, a habit he still can’t rid himself of though he no longer needs the gesture to focus his powers.

“You make him less so,” Raven points out, and her words hit close to the bone.

“I can’t risk everything I’ve built here for one man.”

“Can’t you? It seems like you’re willing to take risks on everyone but Erik. Look at me and Hank. Do you think we’d be where we are today if I hadn’t been prepared to take a risk?” Her blue skin darkens as she flushes a little.

Charles had suspected something, from the new awkwardness he’d sensed from her and Hank recently, the intense way they’ve been orbiting around each other. He is happy for them — except, whatever mistakes Hank has made with Raven in the past, he is no terrorist or murderer.

“That’s different,” Charles says. He finds a smile from somewhere. “But I’m glad to hear you are both happy. It’s been a long time coming.”

“Don’t try and distract me,” Raven says, brandishing an asparagus spear on her fork like a weapon. “We need Erik. The X-Men need him. And I don’t say this lightly. He tried to kill me, remember?”

“Join the club,” Charles says wryly, and Raven pokes him in the side. He looks down at his own plate, suddenly not as hungry as he thought.

“Seriously, Charles,” Raven says in between bites. “It’d be better for the whole world if he were on our side. And if you two just got over yourselves and admitted that—”

Honestly, Charles almost never uses his powers to temporarily deprive people of speech, but this time he makes an exception. Raven goes instantly silent.

She glowers at him and gives him the familiar lecture about being arrogant and hypocritical with the use of his powers, until Charles is thoroughly contrite and practically cowering in his chair.

She doesn’t mention Erik again, though.

*

Charles dwells on Raven’s words when he goes to bed that same night. He runs the comforter through his hands, staring up at the ceiling while sleep eludes him.

Since En Sabah Nur was defeated, the old anti-mutant lobby has been gaining traction once more. Bills are being drafted to restrict mutant rights; their enemies are growing, even as others have become more accepting of their kind.

Objectively, he could use Erik and his Brotherhood. They would be stronger together; convincing Erik to join them is the right thing to do.

It’s just impossible to separate the issue from his feelings for Erik, feelings that haven’t diminished despite the all years that have passed. Charles is pretty sure it’s mutual on Erik’s part, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. Erik’s love for Charles has never precluded him from making terrible decisions in the past.

He looks over at the other side of the bed—empty as always—and wonders if he is prepared to take a risk.

But he’s spent so long guarding his heart he doesn’t know how to stop.

*

_1987_

Around two am, there’s a crash outside Charles’s bedroom.

He puts down his book, on the alert already in case someone’s there. He silently wheels himself in the direction of the window, ready to incapacitate the intruder. His powers should do the trick, but he grabs the baseball bat from behind his nightstand in case it’s one of those annoying psi-insensitive mutants, or more rarely, someone with the tech to block his telepathy. These days there are anti-Xavier fringe groups far scarier than the Brotherhood to worry about.

Charles squints into the darkness and there is Erik, standing under his window in full Magneto regalia: helmet on his head, idiotic cape billowing behind him in the wind. Charles nearly sags with relief before he catches himself.

“Erik,” Charles says, keeping his voice neutral. He eyes the helmet. “Or is it Magneto?”

Erik regards him coolly. “That’s a metal baseball bat, professor.”

“Well, I didn’t think it was  _you_ ,” Charles says irritably. He drops the bat. “Why are you at the window?”

“Too late,” Erik says, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Couldn’t use the door. I didn’t want to wake up the children.”

“I could have come and let you in, you idiot,” Charles says.

“I didn’t want you to have to get up in the middle of the night and come all the way out to the front door,” Erik says. “Seemed a bit rude.” At this, Charles laughs, because as far as Erik goes, this is about the least of his rude behaviour.

It’s a cool night and Charles is starting to shiver. “Come in, then,” he says. He shifts his chair back so Erik can levitate himself through the open window. It closes with a lazy wave of Erik’s hand.

“Oh,” Erik says, remembering the helmet. He takes it off and sends it over to the mantelpiece with a flick of his fingers. “I didn’t want you to hear me coming.”

“I’m flattered you were so determined to surprise me,” Charles says dryly.

Erik looks flustered for a moment. Charles stares at him, trying not to smile.

“Was the cape really necessary?”

Erik ignores the jibe, but he unhooks the crimson cape and tosses it carelessly over the nearest chair. He pointedly sweeps his gaze over Charles’s scruffy cardigan and chinos.

“They’re comfortable,” Charles says, somewhat defensively. “My days of wearing body armour are over. What I wear in the privacy of my own room after hours is my business.”

“Whatever you say, Charles,” Erik says. He hums to himself as he unbuckles the breastplate and shoulder pieces and lays them on the chair, revealing a relatively normal black turtleneck with purple sleeves and black jeans underneath. Understated, really, as far as Magneto’s usual sartorial choices go.

He goes for Charles’s decanter of scotch and pours himself a generous measure, then settles himself into an armchair like he belongs there. It’s infuriating.

“Why are you here, Erik?” Charles says, narrowing his eyes. He’s tired and cranky and ought to stop this in his tracks before it gets going. He knows how this goes by now: he ends up sad and bruised while Erik waltzes off into the sunset.

“Can’t I drop in on an old friend?” Erik says. His thoughts are shuttered tight; Charles can’t pick up on a thing.

Charles admits to himself he’s intrigued and wheels himself to sit opposite Erik. He might as well let this farce play out before they go their separate ways again.

“I’m not sure friends is the right word for us,” he says. “I haven’t seen you in two years.”

“That never mattered before,” Erik says, and perhaps he has a point. He sips his scotch with an audible sigh. “You do always get the good stuff, Charles. Sure you won’t imbibe?”

Charles shakes his head. It’s late, and he suspects he’ll need a clear head for this conversation.

“If we’re not friends, how about frenemies?” Erik tries, a strange smile on his face.

“Frenemies it is,” Charles says, feeling something in the pit of his stomach twist. He holds out a hand for Erik to shake.

Erik’s smile turns to a grin and his fingers tighten around Charles’s. Charles gets a sudden, dizzying jolt of lust from him and hastily pulls his hand back. He probably should have expected this; he shifts uncomfortably, his skin turning warm as glimpses of Erik’s fantasies filter through his mind.

Erik picks his glass up again to drain it, and when he puts it down his lips are wet and shiny. Charles swallows hard, unable to break the silence or look away.

“Or maybe we could be…sexy enemies?” Erik suggests.

Charles almost laughs until he picks up on the shining thread of hope in Erik’s mind. He has to put his face in his hands for a few seconds to compose himself.

“Maybe we don’t have to be enemies at all,” Charles points out, once he’s recovered. “It’s not as though the Brotherhood has done much recently apart from its mutant advocacy work, which isn’t that dissimilar to ours — if a little more unorthodox. Only a few kidnappings of politicians here and there. The odd bomb threat. If I didn’t know any better, Erik, I’d say you were going soft in your old age.”

“Hm,” Erik says, non-committal. He leans in, his gaze very serious, so close that Charles can smell the whisky on his breath. “What happened to what you said before? How you could never have me around your students. Is that still true?”

“I’ve thought about it,” Charles says. “I know you didn’t mean to turn my students into warriors. And I accept that the world is not as kind a place as I’d like to believe it is, so I’ve made a few concessions to that. Alongside the genetics research Hank is engaged in, he’s developed some new weapons prototypes. Raven runs weekly drills for the X-Men in the Danger Room. So you see, I’m not as naïve as you think.”

Erik’s expression is careful. “What if I said I’d try not to kill anyone? Would that make a difference?”

“It might.”

Charles can feel his resolve starting to crack. As much as his carefully thought-out moral philosophy cannot allow him to approve of the taking of life, he has viewed the world through Erik’s eyes too many times not be affected by it. He has seen the dark and light of the world, and between it, the shades of grey that Erik has lived his life in. If Charles is being honest, he’s lived much of his life in those shades of grey, too.

“Is that why you’re really here, Erik?” Charles asks, because he has to know. “For the good of my students? Nothing else?” His chest feels like a heavy weight has settled on it.

“I realized something that’s been staring me in the face for over twenty years,” Erik says, somewhat unsteadily. “Let’s just say I’ve been slow on the uptake.”

“And what was that?” Charles says. His heartbeat is turning loud in his ears.

“I should have been here, the whole time.” Erik takes his hands, his thumbs stroking over Charles’s palms. “With you.”

“Oh, Erik,” Charles says quietly. “You could have been.” He can’t say anything more. Right now, this is enough.

“Can I,” Erik murmurs, shuffling forward on the chair and moving a hand to rest it on Charles’s cheek. The heat bleeds from his touch onto Charles’s skin. Charles shudders, his whole body already tingling; waiting; wanting.

 _Yes, for God’s sake, I might die if you don’t_ , Charles near-shouts in his mind, and he doesn’t have it in him to be embarrassed as Erik looks at him, eyes wide and pleased, his expression more than a little bit feral.

They tip into each other and when their lips meet, it’s slower than expected, Erik’s mouth pressing gently against his until he opens for him. Erik tastes like scotch and his mouth is soft; Charles moans a little as Erik licks into his mouth and the kiss deepens, his head spinning with the pleasure of it.

Charles skims Erik’s thoughts and is surprised to find he knows something about how this will go — he’s read things, researched ways that Charles can feel pleasure, positions that work.

“You’ll tell me, if I do something wrong,” Erik says, drawing back, his fingers stroking along Charles’s throat.

“You won’t.” Charles smiles fondly. “But I’d better take one of these first.” He goes to the nightstand, breaks one of Hank’s pills out of its packet, and the unromantic aspect of taking it is eased when Erik’s eyes brighten with excitement.

Once they’ve made it to the bed, they take their time. Charles shows Erik what he wants, allows Erik to discover all the things that are different about this and yet the same. Erik particularly delights in exploiting the extreme sensitivity of Charles’s nipples once he’s figured out the inhuman sound Charles makes if he so much as touches them. By the time Erik strokes him to hardness and sinks down on his cock, tangling their fingers together, Charles is near-undone already. At the same time, he feels the press of Erik’s mind, a perfect echo of their physical connection. He feels it all: the slick heat of his cock filling Erik, the stretch Erik gasps through, the slight edge of pain that lessens as he relaxes around him.

It’s sweeter and more intense than any of their times in the past; Erik’s thoughts so open to him, their mouths meeting again and again, sharing breath and space and mind. When Erik comes with a low cry, bearing down on his cock, his mind falls into Charles’s, and Charles can taste the echoes of his own answering orgasm in a place he can’t feel as Erik wrings it from him.

The coins on Charles’s nightstand rattle and keys drop from their hooks on the wall as Erik falls apart for him completely.

*

“I do love you, Charles,” Erik says, still slumped on top of him, the words coming out breathless.

It’s not as Charles doesn’t know that already, what with all the shouty thoughts that were cycling through Erik’s head as he moved over him. But saying it out loud has always meant something different: the words made flesh, made real.

The answering words are caught in Charles’s throat, and his thoughts are barely coherent enough to share right now. He reaches for Erik’s face and tugs him into a kiss that says everything he can’t.

*

Erik is reluctant to let go of Charles, but when being pressed together like this starts to get sticky and uncomfortable, he reluctantly peels himself away and goes to find washcloths and towels to clean them up. He settles them back into bed and helps Charles arrange his legs into a comfortable position, which is a bit coddling for Charles’s taste, but he indulges Erik. He can tell that Erik, in his own way, is making up for a lifetime where he wasn’t there for him.

“I’ve loved you for twenty-four years, I think,” Charles says, and it’s like a weight lifts from him then and there upon finally admitting to it. Erik squeezes his hand, and Charles feels a burst of joy from his mind.

_Me too. Longer, if I could say I loved you when I hadn’t yet met you. I was always waiting for you._

“You lost a family,” Charles says, because he can feel Erik’s thoughts turning to them. “But you’ve always had one here. Maybe in time, you can build a new one.  _We_ could build a new one.”

He’s half-tempted to mention Peter, and then thinks better of it. That’s something Erik needs to learn in his own time.

“It doesn’t replace them,” Erik says fiercely, evading an answer to the unspoken question:  _will you stay_.

“No, it doesn’t,” Charles agrees. “Erik, I have to ask, did you really mean all those things you did? The volunteering, the Rewind programme. All the charity work.”

There’s a flash of anger from Erik; shock that Charles would think him to be so base and insincere.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Erik says, his mouth turning down. “Of course I did. I felt I owed it to them; the humans. Call it my penance, if you like.” Charles frowns; it’s clearly not the whole story. He waits, looking at Erik expectantly.

“And yes, there was some part of me that wanted to convince you I meant it,” Erik admits. “I thought, with your permission, that now might be the time to turn my attention back to my own kind. Perhaps we can get the world to see it our way, Charles.”

“ _Our_  way?” Charles repeats, sceptical.

“The better way,” Erik hastily corrects. “We can show the humans a better way, and maybe it won’t end with them killing us off for good.” He gives Charles a pointed look and taps his temple. “You’d know if I was lying, Charles. Go ahead.”

Taking the invitation, Charles probes at Erik’s mind, finding nothing but the blinding sunlight of clarity. Not for the first time, it stuns him, the beauty and order of Erik’s thoughts when they aren’t tangled up with poison and hate. He’s momentarily distracted by thoughts of what Erik could do, the things they could accomplish together.

“Perhaps the remnants of the Brotherhood could be persuaded to join us?” Charles suggests tentatively. “I know you’ve been leading them still, from behind the scenes.” Erik tilts his head; he doesn’t deny it. “And together, we may continue our work towards mutants being fully accepted into society.”

“I forgot how earnest you always were, Charles,” Erik says, and leans in to kiss him very softly, his hand stroking over Charles’s jaw.

“The Brotherhood?” Charles asks again, pulling back from Erik's mouth, needing confirmation. Hoping against hope that this time, Erik might come around and realize they really are on the same page for once in their lives.

“Forget the fucking Brotherhood,” Erik groans. “It’s a stupid name. Not to mention a bit sexist. I hated it from the beginning. Emma and Angel laughed at me when I chose it back in the sixties. The evil part was a joke, but it stuck. Obviously, I kept the name just to spite them. And then they were dead, and I felt it was an insult to their memory to change it.”

“Makes sense,” Charles says. He stares Erik down. “Come on, Erik. Just tell me. Can you convince your compatriots to join us or not?”

“Fine, yes,  _alright,_ ” Erik concedes. “Let’s save the world. I think I can talk Janos and Mortimer into it. The others will fall in line as soon as they do.”

“You’ll have to teach,” Charles reminds him. “Guide young, impressionable mutants towards full mastery of their powers. You might have to become responsible.”

“I could never be that,” Erik scoffs, but he looks disgustingly happy about the idea.

Charles speculatively eyes Erik’s costume on the other side of the room. “Are you going to be wearing that cape again?”

“Of course,” Erik says. “It’s slimming.” Which is preposterous, because Erik has somehow managed to remain lean as a greyhound despite all the years on him. His eyes take on a mischievous glint. “Maybe I’ll wear it every day.”

“Erik.”

“And you have to call me Magneto around the children. It’s my professional name.”

“If I must.” Charles sighs. “But I draw the line at Professor X. Not that they don’t all call me that behind my back anyway.”

He spares a fond thought for all the charmingly abstract drawings his youngest pupils do of Professor X, apparently their favourite superhero. Several of them are framed in the study.

“Professor X and the X-Men,” Erik says, laughing. “I’m sorry, Charles. You know I greatly admire all you’ve built here. But really, that name?”

“You’re one to talk,” Charles says, and immediately regrets it when Erik jabs him painfully in the ribs.

“X-Men is just as sexist a name as the Brotherhood, though, isn’t it,” Charles says, thoughtful. He rubs his temple. “I don’t suppose it’s all that welcoming to the women in our ranks.”

“We’ll have to choose a new name,” Erik agrees. “Call it a new start.”

“X-Squad? X-Mutants?” Charles muses. “X-Factor?”

Erik gives him an exasperated look, and proceeds to shut him up by kissing him thoroughly.

Charles has no complaints about this.

*

This time, Erik stays.

*

_2023, reset_

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Charles asks Logan.

He doesn’t know how he knows that this is the right timeline, and in the other one, everything was wrong. But he knows.

He fills in the blanks for Logan, and Logan does the same for him. Charles gives him the gift of speaking out loud rather than simply drawing the old past and future out of Logan’s thoughts.

“Erik,” Logan says eventually, breaking into the terror that Charles feels from knowing of that future they averted. “Did that son of a bitch make it after all?”

Familiar as breathing, Charles reaches out for Erik’s mind, in a classroom down the hall demonstrating some showy magnetism for the first-year students. He does like to start the year off that way, before the real work begins. Erik is tough but fair with the children, and the ones who won’t go to Charles will seek out Erik for his (relatively) non-judgmental guidance. A day has scarcely passed between them without an argument—usually over curriculum minutiae or training of the X-Men—but Charles has learned to look forward to these disagreements. To welcome them, even.

“Oh, yes,” Charles says, his features spreading into a smile. He rounds the desk and wheels closer to Logan’s chair. “In fact, he’s here.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” Logan says. “You got any beer? I think I need a drink before you explain this one.”

Upstairs, Erik’s side of the bedroom is stacked with untidy piles of books that Charles forever begs him to shelve; the collection of ugly metal coffee cups he obsessively collects and Charles hates. Erik has started snoring in his sleep, and Charles, it turns out, is not above using his powers to prevent this.

He wouldn’t change a thing. In every timeline, he imagines Erik would still be his.

**Author's Note:**

>  _You happened to me. I was happened to  
>  like an abandoned building by a bull-  
> dozer, like the van that missed my skull  
> happened a two-inch gash across my chin.  
> You were as deep down as I’ve ever been._  
>    
> \- from ‘Nearly A Valediction’, Marilyn Hacker
> 
> I'm sure Russell and his Deadpool 2 cronies wouldn't have even been alive in the mid-eighties, but the X-Men series is not known for its timeline consistency, so *shrug*. 
> 
> ** Note: Viagra wasn't invented until the nineties, but I think Hank's mind is brilliant enough to invent it several years ahead of time ;).


End file.
